There were always wars, 12/20. Always. Back to Babylon, there were wars and massacres and atrocities committed on the battlefield by men under arms, or bandit gangs.
But kids didn’t walk into kindergartens, solo, and blast 20 small children. That is 100% new.
Ultra-violent and ultra-expliscit movies and video games are new in the human condition, and they desensitize children. First person shooter video games they are a trigger for folks already close to the edge, and I can prove it.
Extensive military studies showed that less than 10% of WW1 soldiers ever aimed and fired directly at enemy soldiers, even in bitter trench warfare across no-man’s-land. The stats were little better in WW2. Why? The first person “kill image” was never in a person’s head to begin with, before ultra violent movies and video games put them there.
Rifle training before combat was almost all at distant round bullseye match targets. Most people had “thou shalt not kill” deeply ingrained in their minds, and round targets on a range did not transfer to killing actual live humans in combat.
By the 1960s, modern military psychologists understood this “problem,” and they changed rifle training to pop-up reactive targets that looked like actual enemies. I remember shooting Viet Cong popup targets with rice paddy hats carrying AKs. The targets were visible for only seconds, so you had to shoot the humanoid target fast to make your quals and pass.
In Viet Nam, the percentage of actualyoung American troops WW1, WW2 and Korea. This fact is beyond dispute. The “first person” fast-reaction humanoid popup target training is mainly the reason why.
Then we got the first-person POV combat video games, and kids today are rewired from an early age to visualize and actually enjoy rapidly shooting human-looking “enemies” in front of them.
Combine this neural rewiring (from a baseline of “thou shalt not kill” in 1910, to “kill them fast!” in 2012) and the potential psychos among us now know exactly what to do when they lose control of their rage. Get a gun, be the shooter, and achieve instant fame and immortality via the MSM’s celebrity and fame machine.
The "kid" was 20 years old, IE an adult. Adults killing kids is, unfortunately, nothing new, even if charging into a school is.
BTW, girls play many of these games and watch many of these movies too. Why aren't they charging into classrooms and shooting up the place before killing themselves? Maybe it's time to stop blaming race, religion, political affiliation, etc., and start asking why so many males are doing this?
“Then we got the first-person POV combat video games, and kids today are rewired from an early age to visualize and actually enjoy rapidly shooting human-looking “enemies” in front of them.”
I know a man whose son is in 5th grade. This man says his son wants to join the military because he is really good killing people in video games. This man thinks that is just fine, the kid will shine in the military because the kid is so good at those killing games. He says the military has changed and these video games are preparation for that.
Maybe by the time the kid is 18, he will have more sense. I doubt the father will change.
Much early warfare involved killing men, women & children - whole villages. It was meant to instill terror and break the will.
I think these shooters have an “I’ll show them” mentality - losers who can’t bear the blow to their ego (as well as other trauma, perhaps) that their life has dealt them. I also think there’s a certain “drag them down to my level”, born envy and jealousy.
This is an interesting challenge for history buffs. Are random acts of crazy mass murders of children a modern phenomenon...or have they always happened? I don't know my history well enough to answer that.
“In Viet Nam, the percentage of actualyoung American troops WW1, WW2 and Korea. This fact is beyond dispute.”
I think you left something out of this- it makes no sense as written....